In March 2024, the video platform YouTube reported around 32.5 billion visits from global users. Meta-owned Facebook.com reported around 16.1 billion visits from global users, as Instagram.com and Twitter.com followed, each with 7 billion and 6.1 billion visits from users worldwide during the examined month. Wikipedia.org, which hosts users-generated encyclopedic entries, recorded around 4.4 billion visits, while news aggregator and community platform Reddit.com saw approximately 2.2 billion visits during the examined period.

These user generated content statistics will show you why this marketing technique is so powerful and how businesses benefit from it.

Instagram, released in 2010, is a photo and video sharing platform owned by Meta Platforms. As of January 2025, **** percent of Instagram users in France were women. Overall, there were around ** million Instagram users in France in January 2024.

Cristiano Ronaldo has one of the most popular Instagram accounts as of April 2024.

              The Portuguese footballer is the most-followed person on the photo sharing app platform with 628 million followers. Instagram's own account was ranked first with roughly 672 million followers.

              How popular is Instagram?

              Instagram is a photo-sharing social networking service that enables users to take pictures and edit them with filters. The platform allows users to post and share their images online and directly with their friends and followers on the social network. The cross-platform app reached one billion monthly active users in mid-2018. In 2020, there were over 114 million Instagram users in the United States and experts project this figure to surpass 127 million users in 2023.

              Who uses Instagram?

              Instagram audiences are predominantly young – recent data states that almost 60 percent of U.S. Instagram users are aged 34 years or younger. Fall 2020 data reveals that Instagram is also one of the most popular social media for teens and one of the social networks with the biggest reach among teens in the United States.

              Celebrity influencers on Instagram
              Many celebrities and athletes are brand spokespeople and generate additional income with social media advertising and sponsored content. Unsurprisingly, Ronaldo ranked first again, as the average media value of one of his Instagram posts was 985,441 U.S. dollars.

The User-Generated Content (UGC) platform market, valued at $381.81 million in 2025, is poised for significant growth. This expansion is driven by several key factors, including the increasing adoption of social media, the rising popularity of online video and streaming, and the growing demand for personalized and authentic content. The diverse range of platforms, encompassing blogs, websites, social media networks, and video-sharing sites, caters to a broad spectrum of users, from individuals sharing personal experiences to large corporations using UGC for marketing purposes. Segment analysis reveals strong growth in the e-commerce and retail sectors, leveraging UGC for product reviews and influencer marketing. The government and public sector are also increasingly adopting UGC platforms for citizen engagement and public information dissemination. Geographic analysis suggests that North America and Asia Pacific currently hold the largest market shares, fueled by high internet penetration and a tech-savvy population. However, growth in other regions, particularly in emerging markets with rising smartphone adoption, presents significant future opportunities. Competition is fierce, with established players like Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter competing with newer platforms focusing on niche audiences or specific content formats. The market's future trajectory depends on factors such as evolving user preferences, technological advancements, and regulatory changes concerning data privacy and content moderation. Future growth will likely be influenced by the increasing sophistication of UGC tools and analytics. Platforms are continuously improving their algorithms to enhance content discovery and user engagement. The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) is expected to further personalize the user experience and improve content moderation capabilities. Challenges include maintaining content quality, addressing issues of misinformation and harmful content, and ensuring data security and user privacy. Despite these challenges, the UGC market shows a robust outlook. Continued innovation in platform features, improved monetization strategies, and expanding user bases across various demographics will contribute to sustained growth over the next decade. This dynamic market offers substantial potential for both established companies and emerging players who can adapt to evolving user needs and technological trends.

Introduction

Instagram Demographics Statistics: Instagram is a popular platform known for its eye-catching visuals and user-generated content. With over 2 billion monthly active users, it offers a lively and engaged community for brands and businesses of all sizes.

This includes important user demographics, trends in usage, advertising insights, and the rise of video content. Understanding this information can help you improve your brand’s social media strategy and connect better with Instagram’s diverse audience.

In 2022, the companies supporting the creator economy that provided services around content creation saw approximately ** percent of the total reach on Instagram among the examined companies in the sector. Creator economy companies offering services related to merchandising saw around ** percent of the Instagram share among companies in the sector, while subscription monetization saw around ** percent of the Instagram reach.

As of April 2025, almost 32 percent of global Instagram audiences were aged between 25 and 34 years, and 29.5 percent of users were aged between 25 and 34 years. Overall, 16.3 percent of users belonged to the 35 to 44 year age group. Instagram users With roughly one billion monthly active users, Instagram belongs to the most popular social networks worldwide. The social photo sharing app is especially popular in India and in the United States, which have respectively 413.85 million and 171.7 million Instagram users each. Instagram features One of the most popular features of Instagram is Stories. Users can post photos and videos to their Stories stream and the content is live for others to view for 24 hours before it disappears. In January 2019, the company reported that there were 500 million daily active Instagram Stories users. Instagram Stories directly competes with Snapchat, another photo sharing app that initially became famous due to it’s “vanishing photos” feature. As of the first quarter of 2025, Snapchat had 460 million daily active users.

Fashion Influencer Marketing Market Outlook

According to our latest research, the global fashion influencer marketing market size reached USD 2.76 billion in 2024, driven by the growing integration of social media in fashion brand strategies and the increasing reliance on digital platforms for consumer engagement. The market is expected to expand at a robust CAGR of 12.4% from 2025 to 2033, reaching a projected value of USD 7.86 billion by 2033. This remarkable growth is attributed to evolving consumer behavior, the proliferation of digital content, and the rising effectiveness of influencer-driven campaigns in driving brand loyalty and conversions.

One of the primary growth factors for the fashion influencer marketing market is the shift in consumer purchasing patterns toward online platforms, particularly among Gen Z and millennial demographics. These segments are highly responsive to influencer recommendations, perceiving them as authentic and relatable compared to traditional celebrity endorsements or direct brand advertising. The increasing penetration of smartphones and affordable internet access has further amplified the reach of influencers, enabling brands to tap into niche audiences and foster personalized connections. As a result, fashion labels are allocating larger portions of their marketing budgets to influencer collaborations, leveraging the power of social proof to enhance brand credibility and drive sales.

Another significant driver is the advancement in data analytics and artificial intelligence, which has revolutionized campaign management and influencer selection processes. Brands and agencies now have access to sophisticated tools that provide deep insights into influencer audience demographics, engagement rates, and content performance. These analytics empower marketers to make data-driven decisions, optimize campaign ROI, and track the effectiveness of influencer partnerships in real time. Additionally, the rise of micro and nano influencers, who offer highly engaged and loyal followings within specific niches, has diversified the market, allowing brands to experiment with various influencer tiers for tailored campaign objectives.

The growing emphasis on video and short-form content, fueled by platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts, has also catalyzed the expansion of the fashion influencer marketing market. Visual storytelling and interactive content formats have proven highly effective in capturing audience attention and driving higher engagement rates. Brands are increasingly collaborating with influencers to co-create compelling content that resonates with target consumers, enhances brand storytelling, and encourages user-generated content. This trend is expected to continue as social media algorithms prioritize video content, further solidifying the role of influencers as key marketing partners in the fashion industry.

Regionally, North America and Europe have traditionally dominated the fashion influencer marketing market due to high digital adoption rates, mature fashion industries, and a well-established influencer ecosystem. However, the Asia Pacific region is witnessing the fastest growth, propelled by rapid urbanization, the rise of local fashion brands, and a burgeoning population of digital natives. Countries such as China, India, and South Korea are emerging as significant markets, with homegrown influencers commanding substantial followings and shaping fashion trends. As brands seek to expand their global footprint, cross-border influencer collaborations and localized content strategies are becoming increasingly prevalent, driving further market growth and diversification.

Service Type Analysis

Within the fashion influencer marketing market, the segmentation by service type plays a pivotal role in shaping campaign outcomes and brand strategies. Campaign management services are at the forefront, encompassing the end-to-end execution of influencer partnerships, from concept

The photo-sharing market, encompassing platforms and services facilitating image sharing and storage, is experiencing robust growth driven by increasing smartphone penetration, readily available high-speed internet, and the ever-expanding use of social media. The market, estimated at $15 billion in 2025, is projected to exhibit a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15% from 2025 to 2033, reaching an estimated value exceeding $50 billion by 2033. Key drivers include the rising popularity of user-generated content, the increasing demand for advanced photo editing and sharing features (including AI-powered enhancements), and the proliferation of cloud-based storage solutions. The market is segmented based on platform type (social media, dedicated photo-sharing apps, cloud storage services), user type (individual, professional), and geographic location. Major players like Facebook, Yahoo, and newer entrants leverage innovative features such as advanced search capabilities, augmented reality filters, and interactive storytelling tools to attract and retain users. Despite its growth, the market faces certain restraints. Concerns around data privacy and security, increasing competition among established and emerging platforms, and challenges related to managing the massive volume of data generated are factors that could impact growth. The market's future success will hinge on platforms’ abilities to effectively address user privacy concerns, innovate with engaging features, and effectively monetize their services without compromising user experience. Furthermore, the rise of AI-driven photo editing and organization tools will continue to reshape the competitive landscape, with companies investing heavily in R&D to stay ahead of the curve. Regional differences in internet penetration and mobile device ownership also influence market growth, with North America and Asia currently holding significant market share.

Instagram’s most popular post

              As of April 2024, the most popular post on Instagram was Lionel Messi and his teammates after winning the 2022 FIFA World Cup with Argentina, posted by the account @leomessi. Messi's post, which racked up over 61 million likes within a day, knocked off the reigning post, which was 'Photo of an Egg'. Originally posted in January 2021, 'Photo of an Egg' surpassed the world’s most popular Instagram post at that time, which was a photo by Kylie Jenner’s daughter totaling 18 million likes.
              After several cryptic posts published by the account, World Record Egg revealed itself to be a part of a mental health campaign aimed at the pressures of social media use.

              Instagram’s most popular accounts

              As of April 2024, the official Instagram account @instagram had the most followers of any account on the platform, with 672 million followers. Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (@cristiano) was the most followed individual with 628 million followers, while Selena Gomez (@selenagomez) was the most followed woman on the platform with 429 million. Additionally, Inter Miami CF striker Lionel Messi (@leomessi) had a total of 502 million. Celebrities such as The Rock, Kylie Jenner, and Ariana Grande all had over 380 million followers each.

              Instagram influencers

              In the United States, the leading content category of Instagram influencers was lifestyle, with 15.25 percent of influencers creating lifestyle content in 2021. Music ranked in second place with 10.96 percent, followed by family with 8.24 percent. Having a large audience can be very lucrative: Instagram influencers in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom with over 90,000 followers made around 1,221 US dollars per post.

              Instagram around the globe

              Instagram’s worldwide popularity continues to grow, and India is the leading country in terms of number of users, with over 362.9 million users as of January 2024. The United States had 169.65 million Instagram users and Brazil had 134.6 million users. The social media platform was also very popular in Indonesia and Turkey, with 100.9 and 57.1, respectively. As of January 2024, Instagram was the fourth most popular social network in the world, behind Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp.

As of April 2025, around 17.6 percent of global active Instagram users were men between the ages of 25 and 34 years. More than half of the global Instagram population worldwide was aged 34 years or younger. Teens and social media As one of the biggest social networks worldwide, Instagram is especially popular with teenagers. As of fall 2023, the photo-sharing app ranked third in terms of preferred social network among teenagers in the United States, following TikTok and Snapchat. Instagram was one of the most influential advertising channels among female Gen Z users when making purchasing decisions. Teens reported feeling more confident, popular, and better about themselves when using social media, and less lonely, depressed and anxious. However, social media can also have negative effects on teens, which can be much more pronounced on those with low emotional well-being. It was found that 35 percent of teenagers with low social-emotional well-being reported to have experienced cyber bullying when using social media, while in comparison only five percent of teenagers with high social-emotional well-being stated the same. As such, social media can have a big impact on already fragile states of mind.

The photo-sharing market is experiencing robust growth, driven by the increasing penetration of smartphones, the rise of social media platforms, and the growing demand for convenient and visually appealing ways to share personal experiences. The market size in 2025 is estimated at $15 billion, demonstrating significant expansion from previous years. While precise historical data is absent, a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 15% is projected for the forecast period (2025-2033), indicating a substantial increase in market value. This growth is fueled by several key trends, including the increasing popularity of user-generated content, the development of advanced photo editing tools within the apps themselves, and the integration of photo-sharing capabilities into other digital platforms. The market is segmented by service type (free and paid memberships) and application (mobile devices and personal computers), with mobile devices dominating due to their ubiquitous nature and ease of use. Competition among key players like Facebook, Instagram, Google Photos, and dedicated photo-sharing platforms is fierce, prompting continuous innovation in features and functionality. Factors restraining growth include concerns over data privacy and security, as well as the potential for copyright infringement. The geographic distribution of the photo-sharing market mirrors global internet penetration, with North America and Europe currently holding the largest market shares. However, rapid growth is anticipated in Asia-Pacific regions like India and China, driven by increasing smartphone adoption and internet connectivity. The continued evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) in image recognition and organization is expected to further enhance user experience and drive market expansion. Furthermore, the increasing integration of photo sharing with other services, like e-commerce platforms, opens up new avenues for growth and monetization. Despite the competitive landscape, the overall trajectory for the photo-sharing market indicates a bright future, driven by its integration into daily life and ongoing technological advancements.

Please cite the following paper when using this dataset:

N. Thakur, “Five Years of COVID-19 Discourse on Instagram: A Labeled Instagram Dataset of Over Half a Million Posts for Multilingual Sentiment Analysis”, Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Machine Learning and Natural Language Processing (MLNLP 2024), Chengdu, China, October 18-20, 2024 (Paper accepted for publication, Preprint available at: https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.03293)

Abstract

The outbreak of COVID-19 served as a catalyst for content creation and dissemination on social media platforms, as such platforms serve as virtual communities where people can connect and communicate with one another seamlessly. While there have been several works related to the mining and analysis of COVID-19-related posts on social media platforms such as Twitter (or X), YouTube, Facebook, and TikTok, there is still limited research that focuses on the public discourse on Instagram in this context. Furthermore, the prior works in this field have only focused on the development and analysis of datasets of Instagram posts published during the first few months of the outbreak. The work presented in this paper aims to address this research gap and presents a novel multilingual dataset of 500,153 Instagram posts about COVID-19 published between January 2020 and September 2024. This dataset contains Instagram posts in 161 different languages. After the development of this dataset, multilingual sentiment analysis was performed using VADER and twitter-xlm-roberta-base-sentiment. This process involved classifying each post as positive, negative, or neutral. The results of sentiment analysis are presented as a separate attribute in this dataset.

For each of these posts, the Post ID, Post Description, Date of publication, language code, full version of the language, and sentiment label are presented as separate attributes in the dataset.

The Instagram posts in this dataset are present in 161 different languages out of which the top 10 languages in terms of frequency are English (343041 posts), Spanish (30220 posts), Hindi (15832 posts), Portuguese (15779 posts), Indonesian (11491 posts), Tamil (9592 posts), Arabic (9416 posts), German (7822 posts), Italian (5162 posts), Turkish (4632 posts)

There are 535,021 distinct hashtags in this dataset with the top 10 hashtags in terms of frequency being #covid19 (169865 posts), #covid (132485 posts), #coronavirus (117518 posts), #covid_19 (104069 posts), #covidtesting (95095 posts), #coronavirusupdates (75439 posts), #corona (39416 posts), #healthcare (38975 posts), #staysafe (36740 posts), #coronavirusoutbreak (34567 posts)

The following is a description of the attributes present in this dataset

• Post ID: Unique ID of each Instagram post
• Post Description: Complete description of each post in the language in which it was originally published
• Date: Date of publication in MM/DD/YYYY format
• Language code: Language code (for example: “en”) that represents the language of the post as detected using the Google Translate API
• Full Language: Full form of the language (for example: “English”) that represents the language of the post as detected using the Google Translate API
• Sentiment: Results of sentiment analysis (using the preprocessed version of each post) where each post was classified as positive, negative, or neutral

Open Research Questions

This dataset is expected to be helpful for the investigation of the following research questions and even beyond:

1. How does sentiment toward COVID-19 vary across different languages?
2. How has public sentiment toward COVID-19 evolved from 2020 to the present?
3. How do cultural differences affect social media discourse about COVID-19 across various languages?
4. How has COVID-19 impacted mental health, as reflected in social media posts across different languages?
5. How effective were public health campaigns in shifting public sentiment in different languages?
6. What patterns of vaccine hesitancy or support are present in different languages?
7. How did geopolitical events influence public sentiment about COVID-19 in multilingual social media discourse?
8. What role does social media discourse play in shaping public behavior toward COVID-19 in different linguistic communities?
9. How does the sentiment of minority or underrepresented languages compare to that of major world languages regarding COVID-19?
10. What insights can be gained by comparing the sentiment of COVID-19 posts in widely spoken languages (e.g., English, Spanish) to those in less common languages?

All the Instagram posts that were collected during this data mining process to develop this dataset were publicly available on Instagram and did not require a user to log in to Instagram to view the same (at the time of writing this paper).

In 2022, Linktree - a digital platform that allows creators to add multiple hyperlinks to their social media profiles and bio - saw a reach of approximately *********** users on the popular social media platform Instagram. Creators' platform and content distributor facilitator OnlyFans reached approximately *********** Instagram users, while affiliate marketing platform Impact saw a reach of around *********** users during the examined period.

As of January 2024, #love was the most used hashtag on Instagram, being included in over two billion posts on the social media platform. #Instagood and #instagram were used over one billion times as of early 2024.

Social media platforms are integral to people's lives, offering ways to communicate, create and view content and share information. According to Ofcom, approximately 89% of UK internet users in 2023 used social media apps or sites. Teenagers and young adults are the biggest users, although there is rapid uptake among older age groups. Advertising is the primary revenue source for social media platforms, although subscription-based services are gaining momentum as platforms seek to diversify their incomes. TikTok is the success story of the last few years, becoming the most downloaded app between 2020 and 2022, according to Apptopia. The short-form video platform reported that it averaged revenue growth of over 450% between 2019 and 2022. After Musk's takeover, X, formerly known as Twitter, adjusted its content moderation and allowed previously banned accounts to return. As a result, over 600 advertisers have pulled their ads from the site because of fears their brand may be associated with malcontent. In response to falling ad revenue, X has introduced a subscription-based service which enables users to verify themselves and boosts the number of people who view their tweets. Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram have responded by introducing a similar service. Revenue is expected to grow by 14.3% in 2024-25, constrained by a slowdown in user growth for most major social media platforms. Over the five years through 2024-25, revenue is forecast to expand at a compound annual rate of 32.8% to reach £9.8 billion. Looking forward, regulations relating to how data is collected, stored, and shared will force advertisers and platforms to rethink how they can target their desired demographics. The rising prominence of AI will require the introduction of adequate regulations. The Online Safety Bill sets out new guidelines for social media platforms to abide by, with hefty fines in store for those who do not. Operating costs will swell as platforms look to meet consumers’ expectations, weighing on profit. Over the five years through 2029-30, social media platforms' revenue is projected to climb at an estimated 9.4% to reach £15.4 billion.

This statistic presents the distribution of posts on Instagram as of June 2019, sorted by type. According to the source, ** percent of posts on Instagram were video posts. Image posts accounted for the majority of content on the social network.

In 2022, companies supporting creators in creating their content saw an average reach on Instagram of approximately *** thousand users on the popular social media platform. Companies supporting creators in monetizing via subscription saw an Instagram reach of *** thousand users on average, while community management services had a reach of approximately *** thousand users.

As of January 2024, Instagram was slightly more popular with men than women, with men accounting for 50.6 percent of the platform’s global users. Additionally, the social media app was most popular amongst younger audiences, with almost 32 percent of users aged between 18 and 24 years.

              Instagram’s Global Audience

              As of January 2024, Instagram was the fourth most popular social media platform globally, reaching two billion monthly active users (MAU). This number is projected to keep growing with no signs of slowing down, which is not a surprise as the global online social penetration rate across all regions is constantly increasing.
              As of January 2024, the country with the largest Instagram audience was India with 362.9 million users, followed by the United States with 169.7 million users.

              Who is winning over the generations?

              Even though Instagram’s audience is almost twice the size of TikTok’s on a global scale, TikTok has shown itself to be a fierce competitor, particularly amongst younger audiences. TikTok was the most downloaded mobile app globally in 2022, generating 672 million downloads. As of 2022, Generation Z in the United States spent more time on TikTok than on Instagram monthly.